An Assessment of Dam Operation Considering Flood and Low-Flow Control in the Han River Basin

An assessment of dam operation is essential in dam management; however, there is a lack of a simple method that could be used in actual practice. This study aims for an actual dam operation evaluation method for flood and low-flow control of the three multi-purpose dams of Soyanggang, Chungju, and Hoengseong in the Han River basin, South Korea. Frequency matching method was applied to make a pair of cumulative distribution function (CDF) using daily dam inflow and outflow records. Runoff increasing and flood reduction rates are derived using CDFs of total and annual records. As a result, the average flood mitigation rates of the Chungju dam is approximately 35% annually and is relatively disadvantaged than the Soyanggang dam, which is 67.7% annually, due to small flood control capacity. The Hoengseong dam appeared to have a small flood reduction rate, but its runoff increasing rate is 94.7% annually because of the 209 km2 upper basin area. The suggested method in this study could be used as a simple and intuitive field method to evaluate dam operations. Also, according to the annual evaluation, the Soyanggang and Chunju dam need more aggressive and anticipative operations for flood control such as pre-discharge before flooding or modify the Restricted Water Level (RWL) for flood seasons. On the other hand, Hoengseong dam need further data and studies.